Economists say there is little doubt that the nation is headed into a recession because of the coronavirus pandemic, with businesses shutting down and Americans being shut in. But it is harder to foresee the bottom and how long it will take to climb back.

Greg Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, says the economy is assured of a recession — at least two consecutive quarters of economic decline — with output falling 0.4 percent in the first quarter and 12 percent in the second. That would be the biggest quarterly contraction on record, but Goldman Sachs upped the ante on Friday, saying it expected a 24 percent drop in the second quarter.

“This is not just a blip,” Mr. Daco said of the outlook. “We’ve never experienced something like this.”

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‘Everything Is Uncharted’: New Yorkers Confront Life Amid a Coronavirus Shutdown

With restrictions tightened on businesses and daily activity, residents are grappling with uncertainty about resources, health care and their paychecks.

“We’re going to put out an executive order today. New York State on pause — only essential businesses will be functioning. 100% of the workforce must stay home. This is the most drastic action we can take.” “Everything is uncharted territory. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in the news any minute.” “I think I’ve been asking a lot of how we could have prevented this.” “Am I going to see another depression like my grandfather saw in the 1920s?” “Over the past few days, New York City has taken a lot of important measures. I’m just worried it came a little bit too late.” “I think I’m scared of having to see more death and from reading stories from abroad, having to make decisions about resources. And I’m worried people in my life are going to die from it. A few days ago, I had to watch a patient basically slowly die. I just felt helpless. This is the first time I’ve really seen people that I truly don’t know how to help. And they are coming in so sick that everything I’m used to doing to be able to treat them, I can’t really do.” “How was your day off, Mich?” “It was emotional, to say the least.” “Why?” “It’s just, like, the hospital has been insane. And every hour, like, things are changing. So it’s just, like, trying to keep up with that while trying to read about what I should be treating these people with, while people are rolling in the worst — I don’t know. They say in 18 days it’s supposed to get really bad. I guarantee you tomorrow we’re going to have like 1,000 more. The numbers are going to go up.” “That’s no problem at all. Thank you very much. That’s very nice. Thank you. Sounds good. See you then. Bye. Well, I have been working. A lot of people are not, which is hard. This place used to have 30 employees, and on Sunday we let go of 90% of the staff. We want to reopen so we can rehire people, you know? It was really hard to let everyone go. These are people that are at the level, they’re not wealthy, you know? This is a very harsh reality. And actually what the job is, is smiling through stress. And this is hard to smile through.” [Rain falling] “It’s go time here at the community kitchen. This is the time where we have to ramp up our services to be very sensitive to how people are feeling. People are coming to us feeling vulnerable. They maybe work in the restaurant industry. People who work in Broadway and in a lot of the behind-the-scenes, they’re coming here saying, well, I don’t have work. So those industries are the folks that are the first ones that we’re seeing come through. But we’re preparing to see more people come through in need.” “All programming at the senior center is suspended for the next two weeks. Stay safe and have a good day.” “So this is not business as usual. We don’t know what’s coming up if people have to stay in their homes for a longer period of time. And we want to make sure people are getting food, especially since a lot of industries are out of work. We are expecting a lot of new people, and we are going to be ready to receive them. This is all very new for them, and some of them are feeling guilt or shame coming to an emergency food program. So we have to remember that we do this all the time, but for them, it’s something new and something that they feel anxious about doing. We’re just getting them registered. They’re getting food. That’s our main priority is people are getting food.” [Sighing with exasperation] “I’m not supposed to touch my face. Hold on a second.” “I have prepared myself already, mentally, multiple times, to go back to Oregon and leave this entire beautiful dream behind me. So many people, including many of my friends, are working at bars, at restaurants, which are now closed. And now we’re all at home, wondering, Can we make it another month? Can our families afford to pay their mortgages at home? Do we just need to go back and start working, just so we can help our own families, the people that we love the most, stay in the homes that we grew up in? It’s hard to think that my mom or my dad are never going to see retirement. The best things that we can do right now as a community is just to give ourselves over to something that brings us true happiness. Because right now, it feels like it’s about to get very desperate.” “This is only something that we can get through if we’re working together. There will be so much suffering, unnecessary suffering, if we’re not really looking out for each other and if we only think about ourselves and our well-being. We have to be thinking about each other.” [Birds chirping]

With restrictions tightened on businesses and daily activity, residents are grappling with uncertainty about resources, health care and their paychecks.CreditCredit...Yousur Al-Hlou/The New York Times

The abruptness of the descent — and the near-lockdown of major cities — is unheard-of in advanced economies, more akin to wartime privation than to the downturn that accompanied the financial crisis more than a decade ago, or even the Great Depression.

Smaller companies will be hit harder than large ones because of their limited access to credit and less cash in the bank. “There will be a swath of small businesses that simply won’t be able to survive this,” Ms. Zentner added.

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Workers boarded up a window on Thursday at Voodoo Doughnut in Austin, Texas.Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

The result is an economy that has gone from full-speed-ahead in January to a full-on freeze. Economists have had to update their models daily as the pandemic increasingly throttles work, commerce and travel.

“Economic data in the near future will be not just bad but unrecognizable,” Credit Suisse said in a note on Friday.

On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that initial jobless claims jumped 30 percent the previous week, to 281,000, the highest level since the aftermath of a hurricane in 2017. But even that number looks tiny next to the number of new claims that Goldman Sachs foresees in the next weekly report: 2.25 million.

Mr. Daco says the unemployment rate could hit 10 percent in April, a level unseen since the nadir of the last recession, with the possibility of even higher jobless rates in the following months. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reportedly pointed to 20 percent unemployment in the absence of effective intervention, though an aide later said the number was not a forecast. And this after the labor market touched record low unemployment for the last several months.

If Mr. Daco’s 10 percent figure is borne out, 16.5 million people would be out of work, compared with 5.8 million in February.

One reason that things could get so bad so quickly is that economic weakness feeds on itself, with demand falling as more businesses shut their doors and layoffs spread. To make matters worse, a dispute between Russia and Saudi Arabia has resulted in a flood of crude oil, depressing prices and hurting the domestic energy industry.

The pain is so severe because the economy is dominated by services, with consumers powering overall demand, a shift from previous generations, when the production of goods counted for a greater share of output. About three-quarters of economic activity derives from consumer spending, and half of that is at risk, Mr. Daco said.

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Before Junior’s Restaurant in Brooklyn closed, a worker picked up a paycheck.Credit...Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

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A closed restaurant in Manhattan.Credit...Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The proposed federal stimulus — which in a Senate Republican version would include checks of up to $1,200 for taxpayers — would be helpful, economists say, but it would probably only blunt the pandemic’s impact, not stave it off.

“A $1,000 check, or even a $2,000 one, won’t pay the rent in New York City, and I suspect it would run out pretty quickly in most parts of the country,” said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global. “It’s nice and it’s needed, but it’s just a Band-Aid.”

The credit-rating agency Moody’s found that lodging, restaurants and airlines would be among the most affected industries, with sectors like health care, pharmaceuticals, mining and chemicals taking more modest hits. Telecommunications, software and the steel industry would be among the least affected.

“This will probably be the world’s first recession that starts in the service sector,” said Gabriel Mathy, an assistant professor at American University whose specialty is economic history. “We can see employment falling much faster than G.D.P. The spike in unemployment claims could be eye-popping.”

Historically, recessions began in goods-producing areas of the economy, according to Mr. Mathy. Some manufacturers build up inventories that can be sold when conditions improve. But at restaurants and barbershops, things have ground to a halt without warning, and that business is lost forever.

Even if the pessimists are correct in their estimates so far, the coronavirus recession would not approach the devastation of the Great Depression. From 1929-33, the economy shrank by one-third, unemployment jumped to 25 percent and the stock market fell 80 percent.

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Goldman Sachs says the next weekly total of initial jobless claims could be 2.25 million.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

In any case, the ranks of the jobless will multiply in the coming weeks, as the rise in jobless claims indicates. And with officials in California, New York and a growing number of other places telling people to stay inside, the economic toll could become worse.

“My concern isn’t United Airlines or even small and medium-sized corporations that issue bonds,” said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Barclays. “It’s the restaurant down the street — they are the ones most at risk.”

In New York, restaurants like Mexicue are hanging on by serving food for takeout or delivery, albeit with fewer workers.

During a typical lunch shift at Mexicue’s location on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, eight employees would work in the kitchen with four or five servers and bartenders in the front of the house. Now the restaurant operates with half its kitchen staff and no one out front. The rest of the employees were laid off.

“We’re really not sure whether the model will work,” said one of Mexicue’s owners, Thomas Kelly. “This is the hardest thing I’ve been through in 10 years I’ve been in this business.”

At one point, it seemed as if manufacturers might be shielded, but the pandemic is now forcing factories to halt operations, too. The nation’s largest automakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler — have idled their plants as a health precaution, even ahead of an inevitable decline in demand.

Smaller manufacturers face tough choices and bleak prospects.

At MaineSole, a shoe manufacturer in Dexter, Maine, business is down by a third in the last couple of weeks, said Kevin Cain, the company’s owner.

“We usually have a backlog, but we don’t have that for April,” he said. “In March, we’ll probably be break-even. It doesn’t look good.”

Frequently Asked Questions and Advice

Updated June 5, 2020

How many people have lost their jobs due to coronavirus in the U.S.?

The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.

Will protests set off a second viral wave of coronavirus?

Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.

How do we start exercising again without hurting ourselves after months of lockdown?

Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, “start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid,” says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. “When you haven’t been exercising, you lose muscle mass.” Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.

My state is reopening. Is it safe to go out?

States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’t being told to stay at home, it’s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.

What’s the risk of catching coronavirus from a surface?

Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.

How can I protect myself while flying?

If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

Should I wear a mask?

The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’t replace hand washing and social distancing.

What should I do if I feel sick?

If you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

Mr. Cain said he was nervous because nine of his 10 workers are 60 or older. “If one of these guys gets sick, we’ll shut down,” he said. If the company were forced to close, he’d be unable to pay hourly salaries, he added.

“I wish I could, but I don’t have the money in the bank for that,” Mr. Cain said. “If I close, they’d have to apply for unemployment.”

Over the long run, the economic damage will be determined not just by what happens on the medical front but also by the level of consumer confidence.

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A virtually deserted shopping area at the Hudson Yards complex in Manhattan.Credit...Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

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O.D. Madison Jr. waited for customers at Pall Mall Barbers in Rockefeller Plaza.Credit...Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

Warwick McKibbin, an economist at the Australian National University, has been modeling the impact of pandemics since 2003, when the World Health Organization asked for an assessment of the fallout from SARS, a coronavirus-caused disease that emerged in China at the end of 2002 and killed 774 people.

At the request of the Brookings Institution in Washington this month, he and a colleague, Roshen Fernando, outlined scenarios for the global macroeconomic effect of the new coronavirus, depending on how widely it spread and how many people it killed.

Even under a relatively modest set of assumptions in Mr. McKibbin and Mr. Fernando’s macroeconomic model, a one-year epidemic would kill 236,000 people in the United States and reduce the country’s gross domestic product by 2 percent, or $420 billion.

But if the virus spreads more broadly and has a higher mortality rate, the economic effect would be proportionately greater. A one-year epidemic that took just over one million lives, which is consistent with recent projections based on scenarios from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would reduce the nation’s G.D.P. in 2020 by $1.8 trillion — 8.4 percent.

Even if the disease does turn out to be a one-year crisis, Mr. McKibbin has little faith in a robust economic rebound once it has passed. In his view, the disease has provided an opportunity to reassess a vast overvaluation of financial assets.

“People may now realize the extent of their overvaluation, and this could lead to persistent economic consequences,” he said. “This is a day of reckoning.”

And what if the outbreak doesn’t run its course in 2020? Were it to become a recurring threat in the United States, like a supercharged flu, killing 236,000 a year, the economists estimated that the virus would trim annual output by 1.5 percent into the future.

Ultimately, the severity of the economy’s slowdown depends on the length and seriousness of the pandemic. But Torsten Slok, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Securities, says consumers will continue to be cautious even after authorities signal the all clear.

A strong rebound — what economists call a V-shaped recovery, as opposed to a U-shaped one with an extended low — would require a profound resurgence in confidence. But few see that on the horizon.

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Sixth Avenue and 53rd Street in New York City. New York has begun to encourage residents to stay inside and close the state’s nonessential businesses.Credit...Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

“There is a risk that the psychology has changed,” Mr. Slok said. “People will be very reluctant to do a lot of travel and spending and may want to save for another day. There will be more caution.”

Reporting was contributed by Eduardo Porter, Patricia Cohen, David Yaffe-Bellany and Ben Casselman.